Twitter has announced that it has purchased a new company called CardSpring that it will use to power ecommerce sales in tweets that users and companies share. CardSpring allows companies to build card-linked offers, electronic coupons, loyalty cards, virtual money, and more that works with credit cards.

Twitter has no plans to shutter the service and use the technology for itself at this time.

CardSpring writes, "At Twitter, we will continue to grow the adoption of our platform and work with our publisher, financial, and retail partners to create new, innovative commerce experiences for consumers."

One way that Twitter can use the CardSpring tech is to enable things like discounts offered via a tweet where you would enter your credit card details on Twitter and then pay with the same card at the local store to get the discount. Merchants would get analytics allowing them to see how effective their purchases are.